Informal title of paper for article review 2

From Digital Culture & Society

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Current revision

Effects of the News-Finds-Me Perception in Communication: Social Media Use Implications for News Seeking and learning About Politics.

Article Title:

Gil de Zúñiga, H., Weeks, B., Ardèvol-Abreu, A. (2017) “Effects of the News-Finds-Me Perception in Communication: Social Media Use Implications for News Seeking and learning About Politics”. Journal of Computer mediated Communication, 22(3) 105-123.

Find article online:

https://doi-org.proxy.library.brocku.ca/10.1111/jcc4.12185

DOI: 10.1111/jcc4.12185

Context Social media has evolved from its initial use of just connecting people across the globe, allowing them to talk thru text and send other forms of media to each other. Naturally, it didn’t take long for news media to find its way to social media, in order to expand their reach, especially to a younger audience. Nowadays, users don’t go out of their way to search for news, the news finds the users, through user interactions and peer sharing. This may have some potential implications on the information, especially political ones, that users receive.

Overview

Gil de Zúñiga, Weeks, and Ardèvol-Abreu, start their article by stating that with social media being at the helm of today's media environment, people may feel that they don't need to actively seek out news because they will be exposed to it and stay informed through their peers and social networks. The author’s call this the “news-finds-me perception”. They tested its effects on news research and political knowledge and called it “news-finds-me-effects”. Survey data by the US Commission shows that people who see the news will realize that they are less likely to use traditional news sources, like a newspaper or cable news networks, and have less knowledge about politics over time. Even though the perception of the news-finds-me is positively associated with spreading news on social media, this doesn’t encourage political learning. The authors’ results show that the news will continue to best strengthen its political knowledge when it is actively south after.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The first strength of this article is the authors’ created term: news-finds-me. This perception is a way to understand the way news works in this modern age of social media. In the past, people had to go out of their way to look for news. However, these days the news will find users on social media, either through the users’ online interaction data or through the distribution of news by the peers. The authors defined the news-finds-me perception as, “the extent to which individuals believe they can indirectly stay informed about public affairs—despite not actively following the news—through general Internet use, information received from peers, and connections within online social networks” (p. 107). The news-finds-me perception also allows readers to understand that this perception does not just mean that people are trying to avoid news. Instead, it just means that people are not actively searching for news. Another one of this article’s strengths is how the authors used the news-finds-me perception and tie it together with both political knowledge and social media use. The article notes that news media is a crucial source of politics for citizens to learn. However, there is some worry that people using social media will increase the gap in political information between those who don’t seek news and those who do. This is a strong notion by the authors, and it was backed up by studies from peer-reviewed authors. The article also bolsters this notion by mentioning that, “citizens today have nearly unlimited media options and often select nonnews content, the concern is that actively seeking news is now a requirement in order for people to learn about politics” (p.109). The research method and data collection are also another strength of this article. The authors built on previous studies and used clear and concise variables to showcase their findings. Although it takes quite a bit of reading to fully grasp the variables, once it is grasped, one can dissect the data collection properly

Assessment

In conclusion, the authors aimed to prove that the behaviour of the news-finds-me perception does not facilitate political learning, regardless of if it’s positively associated with news exposure on social media. Kruse, Norris, and Flinchum use a long and complicated, but detailed research method and data analysis, and the results from their findings help them to provide a valid argument for the point they were trying to make.

--DSamaka 18:06, 1 April 2022